United States is Talking to Taliban, says Karzai

United States is Talking to Taliban, says Karzai

Afghanistan's Karzai confirms US in contact with Taliban. There are currently about 100,000 U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan, up from about 34,000 when Obama took office in 2009.

KABUL - The United States is in contact with the Taliban about a possible settlement to the war in Afghanistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday, the first official confirmation of U.S. involvement in negotiations.

Karzai said that an Afghan push towards peace talks, after nearly a decade of war, had not yet reached a stage where the government and insurgents were meeting, but their representatives had been in touch.

"Peace talks are going on with the Taliban. The foreign military and especially the United States itself is going ahead with these negotiations," Karzai said in a speech in Kabul.

"The peace negotiations between (the) Afghan government and the Taliban movement are not yet based on a certain agenda or physical (meetings), there are contacts established."

The U.S. Embassy declined to comment directly on Karzai's assertion but said the United States supports Afghan reconciliation and has assisted Afghan government-led reintegration initiatives aimed at the Taliban.

"We must help create conditions necessary to enable a political settlement among the Afghan people. This includes reconciling those insurgents who are willing to renounce al Qaeda, forsake violence and adhere to the Afghan constitution," an official at the U.S. embassy in Kabul said.

The United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, weeks after the September 11 attacks, to help oust the Taliban which had hosted al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden.

The Taliban regrouped and has been waging a fierce insurgency for years against the government, U.S. troops and other Western allies in Afghanistan.

SANCTIONS MOVE

Karzai was speaking the day after the United Nations Security Council split the U.N. sanctions list for Taliban and al Qaeda figures into two, which envoys said could help induce the Taliban into talks on a peace deal in Afghanistan.

But despite hopes that talks with the Taliban could provide the political underpinning for a staged U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the discussions are still not at the stage where they can be a deciding factor.

Diplomats say there have been months of preliminary talks, but the United States has never confirmed any contacts. And so little is known about the exchanges that they have been open to widely different interpretations.

There are also many Afghans, among them women's and civil society activists, who fear talks with the insurgents could undo much of the progress they have made in the decade since the Taliban were swept from power.

"We should not give up 10 years of achievements in Afghan women's rights. If that happens, these peace talks will be incomplete and unjust," said Suraya Parlika, head of the All Afghan Women's Union and a senator in the Afghan parliament.

The closest anyone in the U.S. establishment has come to publicly acknowledging efforts to kick-start talks was when Defence Secretary Robert Gates said this month there could be political talks with the Taliban by the end of this year, if the NATO alliance kept making military advances on the ground.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

Karzai said neighbouring countries were nervous about plans for a strategic partnership between Afghanistan and the United States, which may include long-term bases on Afghan soil.

"The issue of a strategic partnership deal with the U.S. has caused tensions with our neighbours," Karzai said. "When we sign this strategic partnership, at the same time we must have peace in Afghanistan."

That is unlikely however, as the deal is expected to be concluded in months, and even the most optimistic supporters of talks expect the peace process to take years.

If successful, the deal might ease worries among those Afghans who fear the United States will pull out too quickly, leaving a weak, impoverished government to fend off militants, and those who worry the foreign forces they see as occupiers will never leave.

President Barack Obama is expected to announce next month how many troops he plans to withdraw from Afghanistan as part of a commitment to begin reducing the U.S. military presence from July and hand over to Afghan security forces by 2014.

The United States is on the verge of announcing a "substantial" drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Friday.

"There's going to be a drawdown. I am confident that it will be one that's substantial. I certainly hope so," the leading Senate Democrat said during an interview with PBS Newshour.

There are currently about 100,000 U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan, up from about 34,000 when Obama took office in 2009.

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